EGM Toolbox—Interface for Controlling ABB Robots in Simulink

Abstract

The development of industrial robotics requires the use of increasingly sophisticated control algorithms. In modern tasks posed by industry, it is not sufficient for the manipulator to move along a programmed path, reaching individual points with the greatest accuracy. There is a need for solutions that can allow detection and avoidance of obstacles appearing on the robot’s path and that can compensate the path for low-repetitive workpieces, adjust the strength of the impact of manipulator tools on the workpiece or enable safe cooperation of manipulators with people. To support this development, this work proposes an interface for controlling industrial robots in the Simulink environment. With its use, we can easily test our control algorithms using an external controller without the need to write an extensive program in the RAPID language. The robot controller’s task is to control the drives to achieve the set trajectory.

Keywords

• industrial robot
• robot control interface
• position–force control